The Appropriate Response
by paperbkryter
Summary: Dark and devious deathfic. When Dean Winchester is brutally murdered, his brother Sam is the only witness  and the only suspect.


"_Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane."_ - Philip K. Dick

* * *

He woke five days ago.

It seemed like eternity.

And he wasn't sure if he were truly awake.

Something inside his head had shut down, some process intrinsic to his ability to think. He didn't want to think. He didn't want to exist. Existence was overrated. He turned himself inside out and hid inside his own head, oblivious to time and space.

He just...sat...on the edge of a bed, staring at a closed door because to look anywhere else hurt him.

Five days.

Five days ago he had opened his eyes to find himself lying sprawled on a threadbare carpet that stunk of piss and mildew...

And blood.

His fingers were still sticky, though the blood had long since dried. He could still smell it, although now it stunk of rot and decay. The A/C was off. The room was warm.

Blood was everywhere. It soaked the carpeting, arced across the walls in long, dark, swaths and spatters. When he looked in the mirror it seemed as if he were crying bloody tears. He had raised a hand and made marks through crimson fingerpaint.

_My fault._

_My fault._

He wanted to die, but knew the oblivion he desired wasn't there beyond the veil. Heaven was a lie. For him there would only be more pain.

_Look what you've done to me!_

There wasn't much left, only a vaguely man-shaped pile of broken bone and shredded flesh. They'd left the skull intact to mock him.

He woke five days ago to find dead eyes staring back at him. Blood stained lips were parted in silent accusation.

_Look._

_Look. _

_Look what you've done._

He had crawled through the unspeakable to reach the bathroom where he collapsed against the toilet, pushing open the lid with hands that shook.

The bitter taste of vomit still lingered in his mouth.

Five days.

Five nights.

He doesn't flinch when the door is kicked in. He'd heard them pounding their fists against it. He'd heard them shouting names he barely recognizes. One is his own.

The other belongs to no one anymore, and certainly not to the rotting corpse lying there in the floor.

They do not come all the way into the room.

"Oh my God."

Not at first.

"Jesus Christ! Get Henricksen up here! Get him up here NOW!"

They grab him by the arms and force him down into the floor. The blood scent fills his senses as his arms are pulled roughly behind his back. He hears their mantra begin...

"You have the right to remain silent..."

He is silent. He is dead.

* * *

They take him to the hospital first. He may be injured. The blood might be his own, but it isn't. Someone shines a light in his eyes. A needle pricks his arm. He's shivering and cannot stop. 

The men who arrested him are there asking questions. The doctors reply.

_Dehydration._

_Shock._

When his eyes begin to grow heavy he knows they have drugged him. Something stirs inside him – fear. He cannot sleep. He cannot dream.

"No, no, no! No!"

It takes several people to wrestle him down to the floor. More drugs are injected. He's shouting, and then crying, fighting feebly to escape them, unable to explain why he cannot sleep.

"Please," he sobs. "Please..."

They secure him to a bed. He cannot fight, cannot fight...

Can.

Not.

Fight.

THEM.

Stinking of sulfur, eyes burning with crimson flame, they force their way in despite his efforts to hold them back. He swings the machete he has etched with sigils he hopes will hurt them. They tear it from his hands and throw him to the floor. The weapon is useless, and he is of little consequence. He is not the one they want. He isn't the one who they have come to take with them.

"_DEAN!" _

He tries to rise and is shoved back down by some unseen force. He tries again, and again he is brutally subdued. His head is spinning. Consciousness fades in and out as the screaming begins. They are screams like nothing he has ever heard before that end with a liquid gurgle when the throat producing them is torn away.

_No. No. No._

The screaming begins again. He arches himself up off the bed, straining against the straps holding him down.

The screams are his own.

White clad figures converge upon him like angelic vultures. No. No angels these, but ghouls who hold him down and force him back into his memories with their drugs.

Moist, tearing sounds. Flesh is ripped from bone.

Bones crack and shatter. Limbs are torn away.

The Hell Hounds have their reward. They have sent the soul to Hell. The body is theirs to do with as they please.

Darkness descends.

The demon dogs continue their feast.

* * *

He's bound. A strait jacket. They think he's crazy. Maybe he is. 

Drugged, but conscious, he sits in a chair in a small room with a mirror. He may be crazy, but he's not stupid. He knows there are people behind the glass watching him, listening to what he has to say.

He doesn't say much.

Henricksen isn't a patient man. The answers to his questions have not pleased him.

"Why did you do it?"

_I didn't._

A picture is shoved in front of him. The bloody mirror. The words.

"Did you write this? My fault? You know, that's a confession in my book, Sammy."

_DON'T CALL ME SAMMY! _

Not now. Not ever. The name died back in that room with the only one who had permission to use it.

"Let me tell you what I think happened and I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt. I don't believe this was premeditated. I think you got sick of your brother calling the shots, getting you in trouble. I think you lost it, Sam. I think you hacked Dean up into pieces because you just couldn't take any more of his shit."

The coroner must not have been able to explain the teeth marks, but the cops wouldn't care anyway. Henricksen certainly doesn't care. Henricksen wanted to be the one who would shove a needle in Dean Winchester's arm and send him to Hell. He thinks he's been cheated of that opportunity. Someone will have to pay.

_She took him._

"She? She who? You were the only one in the room, Sam. Your fingerprints and Dean's were all that we found, and yours were all over the weapon. You were covered in his blood."

_She took him. _

"She _who, _Sam"

_I'm tired._

"We're not done. We're not done until you tell me who murdered your brother."

He's tired. He doesn't want to play this game anymore.

_A lie. Dean paid for a lie._

He laughs.

_I'm still dead. _

And laughs.

Because it hurts.

So.

Damn.

Much.

* * *

He doesn't sleep unless they drug him to oblivion, but when oblivion begins to fade the nightmares return. He's already in Hell. 

"Where's my brother?"

Dean is in Hell too, somewhere. The Hounds brought him here, but he doesn't belong. Sam has come to take his place, as it should have been. He shouts out loud, calling to his captors, begging for some modicum of mercy.

"Where is he? Let him go! It's me you want, not him. Please..."

He's unfit to stand trial. When he is, they'll go for the insanity plea. He's familiar with that defense. A lifetime ago he might have used it himself. He might have been one of them. For now they can do nothing but wait, lock him away and wait for him to regain his senses.

Now he's in truly in Hell, where they drug his mind and abuse his body. It's a state run facility The people in charge are uncaring drones, his fellow damned are the criminally insane. He doesn't bother to defend himself. He doesn't care what they do to him anymore. The first week he's there he's in a cell with two other men. They take turns harassing him until their real motives becomes clear. He can't help but fight then, but he's weak and outnumbered and he loses his battles more often than not. Nobody comes to help him.

Nobody else cares. Why should he?

He stops eating. It isn't long before he's taken away, held down, and a plastic tube is pushed up his nose, down his throat. From then on he's force fed three times a day. There's no dying in Hell, only pain and torture. He almost finds comfort in the strait jacket, and the small padded room they put him in later.

Almost.

It's too quiet there. He can hear the screams again. When they become too unbearable he adds his own, trying to raise his voice loud enough to drown them out as he bangs his head repeatedly on the padded walls of his room.

"ShutupshutupshutupshutupSHUTUP!!!"

He exhausts himself and slides down to collapse onto floor where he curls into a fetal ball, sobbing himself into darkness. Night after night, day after day, this is his world and his living nightmare, but even in sleep there is no respite from the madness. The dreams rip his mind and soul to shreds just as the Hounds had ripped apart his brother's body.

Time becomes a concept he cannot understand. There is no past, no future, only now and it's all the same anyway.

Alone in the dark, shivering with cold, his voice is a barely audible rasp.

"Dean. Help me."

* * *

He hears a sigh. The tone is weary, with a hint of frustration. Hands grab double fist-fulls of cloth and haul him upright, forcing his back against the padded wall. The hands are cold, and warm slowly as they cup his face between them. They tilt his head upward. 

"Sam? Open your eyes, Sammy. Come on."

_Tired. I'm too tired._

"Sam, come on! You've gotta snap out of this!"

_Out of what? Where? Where is he?_

"Duh...Dean?"

"Who did you expect, Mary Poppins? Wake UP, Sammy!"

His eyes feel sticky, the eyelids peel open revealing only light and shadow and blurry movement. He blinks slowly to clear his vision. He has to do it twice.

"Man, they've got you drugged to the hilt."

Focusing makes his head pound. He concentrates on the pale oval hovering in front of his face until it too becomes a face. Dean's face.

Dean's hands.

Whole. Healed. Kneeling in front of him wearing that infuriating grin.

"That must be some good stuff." One thumb pushes up an eyelid. Dean leans in to look more closely. "You're wasted, dude."

His first attempt fails. The second attempt actually produces sound. "Dean..."

"Yeah, it's me." The grin fades, replaced by dipped brows and a frown. "Sammy, listen. You have got to get your head together. This isn't you. Come on! What the Hell are you thinkin?"

"Thu...that I'm in huh...Hell." His eyes roll as he lets out a small, breathy laugh that quickly turns into a sob. "Dean. M'sorry. M'sorry. I tried...my fuh...fault..."

"Yeah, I get it. But that's not important right now. We have to get you out of here."

"Huh...hen...ruksen."

"Screw Henricksen. We've slipped him before, we'll do it again."

He nods, his mind slowly coming to an understanding. It had all been a dream. Someone had drugged him, kidnapped him.

The hands holding his face are warm, solid, real...

Alive.

"Dean..."

"Sammy, come on. Pull it together. Please."

Fingers slip away from his cheeks. He blinks rapidly, struggling to keep his eyes open. Between one blink and another the face hovering before his own is gone.

"Dean?"

There is no answer, not even an echo. His voice is caught up by the padded walls and suffocated by them. It takes all his strength just to turn his head, to look this way and that, while fighting the sick feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.

"Dean?"

No one else is in the room. He's alone.

"DEAN!!!"

* * *

He sits huddled in the corner, face pressed to the wall. Sweat runs from his temples and down his back as he recovers from another battle with the nurses who come to feed him. He feels sick, bloated. Maybe his stomach will explode and that will be the end of that. 

"I know you're dead," he says hoarsely.

Dean never acknowledges it. He doesn't talk about himself. He's full of criticism.

"You shouldn't make them have to do that to you."

He's either a spirit, or some hallucination Sam has dreamed up in his delirium. He's crazy. Why not summon up a hallucination of his dead brother? He can't blame it on the drugs either, they've eased up on him a bit lately.

"Bugs you, does it?"

"Bugs me? To see you held down and force fed slop I wouldn't give a pig? Oh, no, Sam. Doesn't bother me in the slightest."

"Shouldn't. You're dead. What do you care?"

"You're my brother."

He sighs and presses his face closer to the soft padding. "Was..." he whispers. "Was." Turning his head, he gazes back at the spirit sitting against the wall on the other side of the room. "Why are you here?"

Dean turns his own gaze away, staring at another of the drab gray walls as if he is looking at something else far off in the distance. Maybe he is. Can spirits see into the other side? Is this really a spirit? Sam still doesn't know.

"You asked for help, and now," Dean sighed. "You won't listen to me."

He groans. "Can't..."

The Hounds. He closes his eyes and sees the Hounds attacking, over and over again as if the scene were on a continuous loop of film. Blood bursts from punctured arteries, spraying across the room...

He chokes on a sob as the screaming starts inside his head.

"Hell can't be worse than this."

"Sammy..."

"I want to die."

"No, you don't."

"You should have let me die!" He screams the words. "You're the one who said it. What's dead should STAY dead!"

"I couldn't, okay? I couldn't! It's my job..."

"It's not a fucking job! I'm not your _job_! Stop staying that!"

"Sam."

He lurches to his feet, turning on his brother who remains as he is, passively looking up at him. "Dad told you..."

"Dad told me," Dean interrupts quietly, as if Sam is not screaming at him. "I might, _might_ have to kill you if I couldn't save you."

"Resurrection is after the fact, Dean! You didn't save me from a damn thing!"

"I know that now."

The floor is as soft as the walls. He collapses into it. His voice is muffled. It doesn't matter, he knows Dean can still hear him.

"Then make it right. Let me die."

"No."

He raises his head to glare at the spirit/hallucination, voicing a demand he's made before.

"Why? Why? For God's sake, tell me why!"

Dean doesn't, and he won't. "You have to get better, Sammy."

It is all he'll say.

* * *

Interrogation. The strait jacket is temporarily removed. His hands are chained together and secured to the table. It's another room with a mirror. He doesn't recognize the thin, gaunt man reflected back at him. Pale skin, hair cut close to the scalp, sunken eyes and hollow cheeks – he looks more like a ghost than the ghost does. 

Dean's leaning against the wall behind Henricksen.

"_He's got a judge in his pocket, Sammy. Looney toons or not, he's gonna find a way to get you in court." _

"Shut up."

The other people in the room look at him. Doesn't matter. They think he's crazy anyway.

"Sam," someone says. "Do you know why you're here?"

He knows the routine. They've been through this before.

"I'm sick."

"But you can get better. You'll be okay, Sam. It's okay."

The someone is the shrink. She's disgustingly patronizing, as if instead of suffering from a nervous breakdown he's somehow regressed to the age of four.

It's not okay, and he doesn't want to get better.

He doesn't respond to her.

"_You might as well," _Dean says quietly, and then his frustration gets the better of him._"Sam. Dammit! Listen to me. You have to shake this off. You can't stay here, and you sure as hell can't go to trial."_

"Why not?"

"Sam?" The shrink follows his gaze, but sees only the Fed standing there. "Why not what?"

"_Henricksen has the death penalty on the table, that's why. You're the frikken legal genius. You should know he has a solid case."_

"So."

"_You're not dying! I didn't go through all this shit for you to just roll over and give up!_"

Pain stabs him in the chest. His eyes are burning. "Dean." His voice is barely a croak. "I can't. I can't do this anymore."

"_Then don't!"_

The vision explodes before his eyes, a vision not of the future, but of the past. He can suddenly smell the sulfurous stench of the Hounds intermingled with the scent of blood. The screaming has stopped except inside his own head. They have torn out his brother's throat. Blood pours from the wound, gurgles out through the severed larynx as some primal part of Dean's mind attempts to continue breathing. Tiny specks of blood are dotted across the surface of his wide open eyes.

There are no demon dogs. It is Sam Winchester holding the knife, the machete. It would cut through anything - flesh, bone. Steel and magic made it deadly. He'd honed it sharp just that morning, wrote the powerful sigils across the steel blade with his own blood.

It wasn't his blood that covers it now.

His gaze darts from the weapon in his hand toward the mutilated body lying on the floor in front of him.

Torn flesh. Shattered bone.

Blood runs down the handle of the machete, over his fist, and drips into the crimson stain already creeping across the carpet. He turns his head toward the door, then to the window.

They'd had to kick in the door to get to him. The window had been whole.

How had the Hell Hounds entered the room?

His mind is slipping sideways. He's slipping. Slipping.

_Did you kill your brother?_

No. She did. She sent her hounds. They killed him. I saw it.

_Did you?_

"Dean?" His fingers dig into the surface of the table. He's suddenly very cold. "What's happening to me?"

He saw it. He saw the hounds. Black shadows shaped like wolves, claws like raptors, teeth has strong and sharp as...

_The blade of a machete? _

They came in through the window, didn't they? She sent them. She sent them because Dean sold his soul for him a year ago to the day...

_He died two days too soon. _

"No." Chains clink as he buries his head in his arms and begins to rock back and forth in his chair. "No. Nononononono..."

"He's faking," Henricksen intones. "The bastard is faking."

"_Sammy. Don't lose it now."_

He raises his head and screams at them all, voicing his denial. "It was her! I didn't do anything! I swear to God I didn't do anything! It was her! She sent the hounds! She sent the hounds!"

"Who?" Henricksen shouts back. "Who is SHE, dammit?!?"

"THE DEMON! SHE DID IT!"

They drag him away when it becomes clear he's out of his head. He's screaming at an empty room now, a padded room, his mind cloudy with drugs and his throat raw from constant shouting. "IT WASN'T ME! IT WASN'T ME! IT WASN'T ME!"

* * *

"Why did you stay?" he whispers. "How did you stay? You should be..." 

In Hell? What was this then?

"I stayed to take care of you."

"Take care of me..." His laugh is short and bitter. "You know don't you? You know the truth...of course you do. You were there, and you aren't crazy."

"You're not crazy, Sam."

"I may have murdered you."

"Henricksen thinks you did."

"Christ. Just give me _something_, please!"

The ghost, if it is a ghost, doesn't reply for a while. He thinks it has gone, but when he opens his eyes Dean is still there, sitting cross legged on the floor at the opposite side of the room.

"Dean?" he prompts.

"It doesn't matter." Dean says quietly. "You're what matters now. You have to get well."

"I'm not leaving here. I'm not going to hurt anyone else."

"You're hurting yourself, Sammy."

"I don't care."

"Well, I do."

He flings it out there as an insult:

"You're dead."

If anything convinces him of the surreality of Dean's presence, it's the reply he makes. In life, Dean would never have been so philosophical. Hell. He wasn't even sure Dean knew what the word philosophical meant.

"Who values life more than the dead?"

"Trite."

"I kinda liked it."

"Thought of it yourself, huh?"

"Dude. I've got plenty of time to think."

Grief underscores everything. It's always there, lurking beneath the surface, shoved aside by other, more physical discomforts. His arms ache from being bound. The collar of the strait jacket rubs sores upon the skin of his neck. The feeding tube hurts his nose and throat. His bare feet are cold. He has to piss.

_Dean's gone. He's dead. So what happens if I do pull it together and manage to get out of here, slip through Henricksen's fingers again? What then? I can't do this alone._

"I enjoyed it," he says.

"Enjoyed what?"

"Blowing Jake away. There have been others..."

"I know."

"I don't realize I'm doing it until after it's done."

"I know."

"Did I kill you? Dean, did I?"

"I told you. It doesn't matter."

"YES IT DOES MATTER!" He bounces his head off the padded wall, grief giving way to frustration and fear. "I can't leave here. I don't want to hurt anyone else. I don't want to kill anymore."

"SAM!"

The tone, the commanding tone of Dean's voice brings him up short. For one brief moment he heard not his brother, but his father. John demanded obedience.

"You can not stay here." The spirit approaches him, grabs his chin in one hand and turns his face toward its own. Dean is angry. "You stay here, you'll die here, and I told you that is _not_ an option."

He jerks his head away, turning once more toward the wall. "Why not? I murdered my own brother, and if I didn't..."

The screaming. The screaming never, ever, stops.

He's going insane. No, strike that, he's _gone_ insane.

Inside his head he hears Dean's agonized screams all the time now, regardless of whether he's awake or asleep. He closes his eyes and sees the blood. He can smell it, taste it. Eating is impossible, sleep a distant fantasy.

"Nothing can hurt me anymore," Dean says softly, soothingly. "It's okay, Sammy. I promise."

* * *

He has a visitor. He thinks it may be his attorney. They drug him heavily so he won't act crazy, still trying to find a single moment when they can declare him sane and send him to regular prison. They'll be able to try him for murder if they can get him there. He is, however, still refusing to eat. They must reluctantly report that he hears voices and talks to himself. It's obvious he is dangerous both to himself and others. 

He's not going anywhere anytime soon.

The mirror room. The interrogation room. He has a history of breakdowns in this room. He sits at the table, chained, rocking back and forth in his chair. Dean was pissed at him. He'd shut down completely. Nearly catatonic he refused to converse with the spirit when it talked to him. He told it to go away, go fuck itself. It didn't. It stayed.

It. Him. Hallucination or ghost?

Did it matter? Whatever it was, or whatever it had been, it was not _Dean_ anymore.

"It," he murmured. "It's an it."

He made a living out of killing "its."

"Salt and burn the bones. Salt and burn the bones. Salt and burn..."

"Sam?"

Her voice is low, with a slight growl to it. It reminds him of honey poured over granola. He'd told her that once and it made her laugh.

"I had to cash in a lot of favors to get in here. The least you can do is look at me." She pauses. "Sam? Hey, sweetie. Come on. Just turn this way a little bit, okay?"

He'd never known his mother. She is probably the closest thing to a mother he'd ever had in his life – if you didn't count Dean, who had always fussed over him just like a mother hen. Yeah, a mother hen in Keds.

Slowly, he stops his rocking, and raises his head to look at her.

"Oh, Sam..." Ellen sighs.

She looks tired. He must look like shit.

"Bobby told me not to come," she says. "So did Jo."

He hears Dean's voice whispering close to his ear. _"They don't trust you."_

"I didn't do it, Ellen," he says. "I swear."

"Bobby told me about the deal Dean made."

"She sent her Hell Hounds."

He closes his eyes. Blood pools in a worn beige carpet. Pieces of flesh lay scattered all over the room. They found a silver ring under one of the beds, the finger still inside it.

"Sam," Ellen says softly. "There was no sign of a Hell Hound anywhere in that room."

"They were there..."

"Bobby looked. He even examined Dean's...remains. It was no Hell Hound."

"I DIDN'T DO IT!"

She is unaffected by his screaming. Her voice is calm, and steady. "If it wasn't you, and it was no Hell Hound, what was it, Sam?"

He slumps back into his chair, head turned away from her. "I don't know."

"_She went to see the crossroads demon."_

"Sam, I went to see the crossroads demon."

There's no point in looking at her, to show how startled he feels. Dean had prepared him. "Why, Ellen?"

"Because despite all the evidence, I didn't want to believe you would kill your own brother."

"I." His teeth grind together. "Didn't."

"That's not what she told me."

"She lied."

"She told me there was one way, and one way only that he could have saved his soul from her."

"SHE LIED!"

Ellen rises from her chair, nonplussed by his anger. "Dean had to die a martyr, at your hands."

He can only stare at her in disbelief. She looks back at him sadly. There are tears in her eyes as she nods and turns to leave.

"I just thought you should know, Sam. I'm sorry. I am...so sorry."

* * *

Dean couldn't have done it. He would not have been able to kill Sam if it had come down to that. He couldn't have gone on alone. 

Death had stolen Sam's ability to control his anger, raised in him the desire to kill once he hit the red-zone. The bloodlust and the hairtrigger temper worsened as time passed. By the end of the year getting him to the red-zone was ridiculously easy. He knew now that Dean had purposely picked at him for months before letting out all the stops in one last, stupid, argument. What it had been about, he didn't know. That memory, like so many others, had been swept away into the dark when his mind shattered.

"I saw the Hounds. That's all I remember. I can't remember what really happened."

He's huddled in the corner of his room, legs drawn up toward his body, head resting upon his knees. His heart aches.

Dean sits in the corner directly opposite him. "You really don't want to."

"It was quick, though. Right?"

"Sam...don't make me answer that."

The screams.

"Oh, God."

The screams.

Don't.

Stop.

A flash of memory...

It wasn't quick. Not at all.

Dean was conscious throughout most of the attack, even after the wound to his throat silences his screams. Death comes slowly as his mouth and lungs fill with blood. He drowns, but not before he feels the agony of each dismembering blow.

Anger, hatred, the overwhelming urge to kill - those things Sam can recall. When the fury had finally run itself out and he saw what lay before him, he had to have some sort of explaination other than the truth. He'd tried to protect himself with false memories. Desperate to cling to some meager bit of sanity when he felt his mind begin to break down he invented a lie, a rational lie. The Hounds had come, the crossroads demon had sent them to collect what had been promised her. That had been the fantasy. In reality he had murdered his brother in a fit of berserker rage. He can't remember, but he knows now it's the truth.

It _is _Dean's spirit sitting there across from him. It is no hallucination. Dean is dead.

He remembers a girl, a beautiful girl lying in a pool of her own blood, a silver bullet in her heart.

"_It's the only way you can save me."_

A voice. Honey and granola...

"_Dean had to die a martyr, at your hands."_

"Do you feel it, Sammy?"

Grief. All he feels is grief, and pain, and guilt. He lifts his head to look at his brother's ghost. "Feel what?"

"You're whole again."

He realizes it is true. The hole inside him, the emptiness he'd felt since being brought back from oblivion, was gone. He'd tried to fill it that hole, ease the pain it caused him. Spilled blood and dead bodies lay in the wake of his efforts. Nothing had made it feel better. Nothing.

But now, Dean is right, he is whole again, and sickened by what he has done this past year. His voice is rough with remorse.

"How?"

Dean laughs softly, without much humor. "Reset button."

Reset button.

He understands after a moment of thought. "Like a broken bone," he murmurs. "A broken bone that heals crooked."

"When I brought you back your body healed the right way. Your mind didn't. I had to break it, Sammy, for it to heal again." Dean's voice is unsteady, filled with sadness. "I'm sorry. I was selfish. I wasn't thinking of you when I brought you back. I was thinking of how much _I_ hurt, not how much it would hurt you. And now...this...I'm sorry. I'm sorry for doing this to you...but I had to. I had to make it right."

Tears. Even as a ghost Dean tries to fight them.

And fails.

"Dean, I..."

He doesn't get far. Dean interrupts him abruptly, the grief in his voice suddenly replaced by a tone indicative of urgency. "You need to call Deacon."

"Deacon? Wha..."

"He knows what to do. I set it up a long time ago. He'll get you out."

"Dean. Please..."

"I can't stay."

"No." He lurches to his feet, staggers across the room to kneel beside his brother. Dean's spirit is fading, growing more and more translucent with every passing second. He can barely feel the hand that reaches out to give his shoulder a squeeze.

"Unfinished business," Dean whispers, and then he smiles. "I swore I would save you and I did. I saved you. I saved us both."

He's crying. "Dean...don't...Don't leave me. Not now!"

"Don't worry, Sammy. I'll see you around."

"Dean!"

_Get out of here and live. Get out of Hunting. Go back to school. Promise me you will._

His lips move, there's barely a sound. He's choking on his tears. He can only nod, and doesn't know if that's enough, but it's already too late. The spirit is gone.

He slumps to the floor, both physically and emotionally exhausted, completely and utterly alone. His brother is dead. Dean's spirit is gone – and not to Hell. Where _do_ the good men go? He can't spare the energy to ponder that question, not now. Sleep calls to him, an urge he can no longer fight. His eyes close, his mind drifts. He hears Dean's voice one more time before the darkness falls. The words are faint, but poignant.

_Sammy, you better take care of my car, or I'll come back and kick your ass._

"You promise?" he breathes. A faint smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. "Promise...Dean. I promise..."

He sleeps then, and does not dream. Inside his mind the screaming has finally stopped.

It's over.

* * *

**Nearly a Year Earlier **

She's sitting on a stool drinking Tequila shots. There is already a row of five empty glasses on the bar in front of her as she lifts a sixth one to her lips and tosses it back. Dean approaches and she gives him her trademark sideways glance and crooked smile. She's chosen an Asian girl this time – tall, thin and dark with almond shaped eyes beneath elegantly arched brows. The look lends her a somewhat feline air.

_Slinky,_ Dean thinks to himself.

"I should kill you," she says conversationally as he sits down beside her and orders a shot for himself along with a beer chaser. "But I heard it through the grapevine that you wanted to _talk_ to me and I must admit, my curiosity is piqued."

"Doesn't take much to pique your curiosity."

"It's my nature."

"Yeah, you demons are a nosy bunch." He throws back the Tequila and takes a long draw from the brew. He acknowledges her latest victim with a nod. "Exotic."

"Not as exotic as spending some time as the opposite sex." She grins. "Now _that_ was interesting."

"The mind reels."

"Let's just say that Sam would not be pleased with some of the games I played while I wore his suit." Tapping her glass on the bar, she signals the bartender for another shot. "Oh, but don't worry. I paid attention to the surgeon generals warnings. In fact I think I was solely responsible for the substantial increase in Trojan's profit margin that quarter."

Dean's stomach rolls queasily. "Terrific."

"Hmm. Jason. He was..." There is a pause as she savors his discomfort. "Insatiable." A laugh, and her eyes go dark, completely dark, a quick reveal of her true nature. "So. What _do_ you want to talk about?"

"You doing me a favor."

"That's rich," she snarls, slamming her newly emptied shot glass down with the others. After a moment, seeing he isn't backing down from her burst of temper, her glare softens. Her eyes become human again. "I've got to hand it to you Dean, you've got bigger balls than I gave you credit for."

"I need an out."

"Of your little deal with that bitch at the crossroads." She nods. "Yeah, I heard about that. What makes you think I'll help you? Seeing you rot in Hell would make my millennium."

"You still playing mercenary?" he asks.

"Mercenary?"

"As in not giving a damn about the master plan?"

This receives a grin. "Oh, sure."

"An opportunist."

"Most of us are."

"But you in particular."

"Absolutely." She cocks her head slightly sideways. "So. You want an out. Isn't this against the terms of the deal, Dean? How do you know this little meeting hasn't caused poor Sammy to drop stone cold dead?"

"Because I figure you aren't the type who lets other demons in on her business. As long as I'm with you, I fly under the radar too."

"My, my. You're ballsier _and_ smarter than I gave you credit for."

"Every deal has a loophole."

"Sam the legal eagle teach you that?"

Dean ignores her. "I want you to find the loophole for me, since obviously I can't do it myself."

Her sly grin drives him buggy. "Expensive."

"I'm prepared to pay."

"With what? You've only got one soul to sell, and I doubt once you get it back from that hack at the crossroads you'll be willing to turn it over to me."

Without a word, Dean reaches into his pocket. He lays the gun on the bar, shielding it from the bartender behind their empty glasses.

Meg's eyes narrow. "A Colt?"

"_The_ Colt."

"If I recall, your life is worth this and a whole lot more." She picks up the gun and looks at it carefully. "And what good is a gun with no bullets."

Dean sighs. He's tired of playing this game, and a reference to his father's death is the last thing he needs. He reaches into his pocket again. A handful of bullets spill out onto the bar. "New ones, made with Samuel Colt's original formula."

"Field tested?"

"And mother approved."

She considers as she picks up each bullet and loads it into the pistol. When she is done, she makes the gun disappear by tucking it into her belt and covering it with the short black jacket she's wearing.

"So, do we have a deal?" Dean asks.

"No," she says. "It's still leaning too much in your favor. I want something else." Her eyes travel the length of his body from head to foot and back again. Her look is sly once more. "The Colt, the bullets, and your death, same as your father."

"What...?"

She quickly places a finger over his lips, shushing him as she leans forward to whisper in his ear. "In France they call it _le petit morte_, the little death." Tossing some money on the bar to pay for her tab, she slides from her barstool with a smile. "I have a room down the street. You want your soul back, you'll meet me there in ten."

* * *

Meg calls him after three days. It's hard to shake Sam, but he manages. They meet on a street corner in Minneapolis. She's sitting cross-legged on top of a mailbox, still possessing the Asian girl. 

Wordlessly, she hands him a slip of paper folded into fourths, and waits as he opens it and reads what it says.

He reads it twice. What it says is beyond belief. "You've got to be kidding."

"Nope."

"How do I know you aren't lying?"

"I believe it was _your_ _father_ who substituted a fake gun for the real one we had bargained for..."

Point taken.

"Besides," she continues, her eyes dark and her smile ominous. "I'm curious to see if you actually go through with it."

"Shit." His voice grows momentarily rough. The emotion is grief – agonizing grief. "Sammy..." he whispers, to no one in particular.

"She's a creative bitch, I'll give her that," Meg drawls. She reaches over and points to something written at the bottom of the paper. "My postscript."

Dean reads the small print at the bottom of the page and then looks up at her sharply. "Are you sure?"

"Yes." She smiles her sly smile. "Save yourself and you can save Sammy. It's the perfect two birds, one stone opportunity." Leaning forward slightly, she grows serious, her smile gone. "You asked for one loophole, Dean. I brought you two. I think I deserve a bonus. "

"I'm tapped out." Dean refolds the paper and pulls a lighter out of his pocket. He drops the note into the gutter and lets it burn. "Sorry."

"I'll tell you what - if you come play with me again for a while. I'll not only consider that my bonus, but I'll give you and Sammy a head start out of town before I call our little business deal officially concluded."

"Yeah? What kind of incentive is that?"

"I still want to dance naked through your entrails, Dean. Or have you forgotten?"

"That's a visual you don't forget," he mutters bitterly. "Sure, whatever."

She grins. "Tie you up?"

"Don't push your luck."

"Fine." Meg eases herself down from the mailbox and presses herself close to him. "We'll drink a toast afterward," she breathes, kissing the corner of his mouth. "To Sam's re-resurrection, and your last days on Earth."

FIN


End file.
